Small local businesses have the marketing advantage in our digitally connected world, and it all starts with a good 'ole internet search. The days of playing Google for higher site rankings are over. 2012 was a transformative year in the world of search engine optimization, with Google completely turning the rules inside out! In the past a good SEO specialist could get a crappy site to rank higher than a high quality site simply by playing to Google's algorithm more efficiently. For 2013 and into the future, Google has implemented some rather amazing tools to examine the web and produce the absolute best content for each individual search. The future of SEO is content...creating content...tons of content! Not sure where to get started? Here are 32 must-do things to keep in mind for 2013.

If you’re a social media marketer – you would be familiar with the feeling of working endlessly and still feeling like you have a ton of work left to do. How do you overcome this? The first step is to give yourself a break. After that, however, it’s time to start looking at ways to work smarter, rather than harder. Tools and extensions have been growing rapidly over recent years and there’s a good reason for it.

Content plays an important role in social media marketing – without good content, there’s nothing to market. You could pour hours, days or weeks into your marketing campaign, but no good content means no leads. It is the first step to connecting with your audience and most marketers don’t have the time to create the content themselves. If you’re one of these marketers, here’s a list of 8 tools that let you find and share great content and help with time management:...

It's interesting to see that content curation is evolving from an opportunity to a necessity as communication shifts from traditional methods (PR, advertising, old-style SEO...) to new ones (content marketing, inbound marketing, social media...). In this new world of communication many things have changed and professionals or companies who want to get heard need to consider this question:

Do people listen to you because they have to or because they want to?

As my friend Steve Rosenbaum, author of Curation Nation, puts it in his latest book, Curate This, we can't rely anymore on captive audiences. Consumers filter out spammy messages which is why, to be heard, we have to curate or die.

We are always interested to see which of our posts resonate with you. Even though we do plenty of research and planning, there are no guarantees about which topics will get a lot of attention and social shares. So, we check our stats and Analytics and, at this time of year, we like to review the entire year’s posts and see how many shares and links they got.Today, we are going to give you an exclusive sneak peek into our ten most shared posts of 2014. Are your favorite RazorSocial posts on this list? There has been over 20,000 shares in total from these posts!...
Via Jeff Domansky

Checklists are great when you have many moving parts or want to tackle a new project. CMI shares 14 of its most popular scorecards and worksheets to help you better plan your content marketing efforts.

We invited the team at Atomic Reach to share their insight in our weekly Twitter chat. The Atomic Reach team shared some amazingly useful tips on how to craft the most engaging content for your social efforts—plus dozens of their favorite content marketing blogs to bookmark!Read below Atomic Reach’s tips on content marketing and a collection of 34 must-read content marketing blogs....
Via Jeff Domansky

Imagine you were compiling a course curriculum for a class on online marketing. What would be your go-to resources?

In digging through my bookmarks and starred articles, I noticed a growing list of awesome stories and helpful links. If I threw them all together, it’d make for quite the collection!

I’d love to share with you what I’ve got so far, and it’d be awesome if you’d consider adding any personal favorites in the comments. Here is what I’ve bookmarked as my must-read social media articles and content marketing resources."...

You were not given a content marketing budget in order to create content. You were given one to increase brand awareness and build your sales and marketing pipelines. Using the Content Marketing Pyramid helps you do just that. (For a deep dive, download Curata’s Content Marketing Pyramid eBook.)

The Content Marketing Pyramid enables the development of content and related assets intended to reinforce common messages/themes through multiple content formats, distribution methods, and promotion channels across owned, earned, and paid media.

The Pyramid assures optimal content consumption, reuse, reach and impact. It provides a common strategic process to align different parts of an organization around “content,” ensuring consistency across functional, geographic, and business unit boundaries....

Journalism and media relations is ever-changing in the age of social news consumption. Understanding and adapting to the changing social landscape helps brands and public relations pros work more efficiently with journalists, which can establish and strengthen relationships with them.

The Edelman Media Network teamed with NewsWhip and Muck Rack to study news consumption in the age of social media. The study uncovered how journalists are adapting and how 76 percent of them feel more pressure to think about their story’s potential to get shared on social platforms.

The study took a deep dive into what ingredients made news stories social in 2014 across five sectors to better understand how media strategies must adapt....

It's interesting to see that content curation is evolving from an opportunity to a necessity as communication shifts from traditional methods (PR, advertising, old-style SEO...) to new ones (content marketing, inbound marketing, social media...). In this new world of communication many things have changed and professionals or companies who want to get heard need to consider this question:

Do people listen to you because they have to or because they want to?

As my friend Steve Rosenbaum, author of Curation Nation, puts it in his latest book, Curate This, we can't rely anymore on captive audiences. Consumers filter out spammy messages which is why, to be heard, we have to curate or die.

When I went rock climbing for the first time, I had no idea what I was doing. My friends and I were complete newbies about ropes and rappelling and every other bit of jargon and technique that goes with climbing.

Developing a social marketing plan is sort of like rock climbing. Here's a basic checklist to help you get started....

In 2015, Facebook is changing the way the News Feed works for its users. These changes will specifically affect brands and the way they conduct Facebook marketing campaigns through their Facebook Pages. These changes can affect your company’s social media marketing plan, so to help your business adjust, we have outlined some common questions and their solutions. It’s time to prepare for the Facebook changes in 2015 and develop a Facebook marketing plan to expand your reach....
Via Jeff Domansky

With the holidays quickly approaching, businesses are beginning to think about their holiday marketing campaigns. In fact, last year it was reported that 50 percent of marketers created and launched a holiday campaign before Halloween. Many of those campaigns will include promotions and giveaways. If you're ready to build a promotion, for the holidays or just in general, ShortStack has 18 tips that can help make your next contest a success.The tips include everything from setting goals and choosing a campaign builder to creating hashtags for your event and the best ways to promote it to your entire social media audience. Promotions continue to be a strong driver of audience engagement and an easy way to gain leads and sales from a business's online followers....
Via Jeff Domansky

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.